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LUAS STRIKES ARE due to go ahead next month after talks between union members and management broke down without agreement.
However, it is understood a strike could be avoided if the union’s pay claims are revised downwards, which as it stands could cost Luas operators millions.
Siptu members at Luas have called for a pay increase of between between 8.5% and 53.8% after tram operator Transdev said no pay increase would be offered over the next five years unless it is in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
It is understood that Transdev’s Republic of Ireland and United Kingdom CEO Nigel Stevens has informed staff that if there was a substantial revision of the union’s pay claims, the company could be willing to in-turn revision its position.
The company has argued that pay claims would cost it €30 million over the 5 years of the Luas operating contract.
“This is at a time when Transdev finds itself in a loss making situation,” a previous statement read.
In a statement this evening, union organiser John Murphy said members are “disappointed” at the approach of company management.
“The company failed to show any initiative in the effort to find an agreed resolution to the dispute,” he said.
Management representatives merely reiterated a previously stated position that our members cannot expect to receive pay rises over the next five years and that any rise that might be granted would be limited to an increase in the Consumer Price Index.
The union has claimed Transdev previously offered a pay rise above the CPI rate.
“Due to the intransigent position displayed by management it is certain that the scheduled work stoppages will proceed,” Murphy added, saying that workers are “conscious of the inconvenience these stoppages will have on their customer”.
These dates will be:
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Disgracefully greedy, I have no support for them at all
Looking like a popular one Paulie
I think the reason theyre angry is because DART drivers get way more and they dont have to deal with traffic and pedestrians. IMO the most someone should make driving a tram is 35000. When you think that a highly educated nurse or teacher starting out would get paid way less than these drivers its ridiculous
why should they even get 35K. Its a ridiculously easy job. push a lever up and down that is it.. no more no less.. sure you have to be attentive, but thats only red line. green line is pretty much clean sailing.. far too greedy.
That’s right. These guys should live like peasants whilst making millions for their bosses just to appease the Journal snobs who look down their noses at working people. Also, how do you clowns know what level of education the Luas drivers have? It really makes me sick to listen to people kissing the asses of the establishment just to make themselves look better. Don’t worry lads. I’m sure one day you will get the recognition you deserve.
The company is currently losing money, who’s making millions? Do you consider 30-50 thousand to be a peasants wage?
They earn plenty for an unskilled job that requires no 3rd level education. With that stupid logic you could argue that a worker in tesco or macdonalds should earn that much because their company makes millions. Why should they earn more starting out then a nurse or a guard?
Yes, how greedy. The Vast Unwashed ask for a better life for themselves and their families. How dare they.
John we’re all paying huge LUAS fares already. If they increase wages, the ticket prices will have to rise. You can literally drive a LUAS using one hand, they have no dealings with the public. A nurse or teacher would already earn less than them as it is and they’ve studied for four years. I don’t like the idea of being held to ransom by strikes every time someone gets greedy.
Train drivers and bus drivers have traditionally been well paid jobs and nurses have traditionally been poorly paid. That does not, in any way, entitle LUAS drivers to a receive very high wages.
Dart and bus drivers have a far more challenging role. It’s not comparible to light rail. It was the only profit making public transport mode for years. That’s with two non connecting lines. When the x city link is in it’ll up connectivity
Ignorance is bliss! Don’t comment on things you know nothing about!
Wow! It dosent matter what education they have if its not “how to drive a Luas” related!! Einstein would have been paid the same if he was a Luas driver despite his qualifications!
Great name you got there.
What a load of self righteous snobs. You say you don’t want to be held to ransom by people threatening strikes but when the doctors, nurses or Garda threaten it you are all behind them and I really mean behind them. With your heads up their asses. Who gives a shit if they didn’t go to university. Most people don’t have that option. They don’t have rich parents bankrolling them. The Journal snobs think working class people should be seen and not heard and appreciate the crap money they get. Strike lads. Get your money and prove to these wimps what affirmative action can do for you. All you need is a pair of balls.
They don’t even have to turn a steering wheel!
Doctors and nurses worked hard to get their jobs and save lives. Possibly will save your life or a member of your families, a colleague, or a friend of yours some day! Luas drivers pull a lever and expect to be paid twice as much, that’s why nobody is behind them! Why does that even have to be explained to you?
Nurses work a 37 hour week over three days. Less than most people in the country. As for their wages. Check out what they are on before you start crying about them working for nothing. Don’t forget the teachers. 9 to 3:30. Three months off in the summer. Every holiday off and a few mid-term breaks. They’re really being worked to the bone. Of course, if they feel that they are underpaid and overworked then they can always apply for a job on the Luas. Although, working full time might be too hard for them.
You haven’t a clue and your doing yourself no favours. Your anger filled rants don’t make up for the lack of substance that’s in them either. Just to be factual, nurses entry level €28000 on a 39hr contract, 4yr degree, and have a lot of responsibility. Luas driver entry €35,000, 35hr week with no qualifications, little responsibility! You cannot justify their salary demands no matter what rubbish you come out with.
I’m not angry. I, unlike yourself, couldn’t care what other people earn. Nurse or Luas driver. In fact you are the angry one because I’ve pulled you up on your flimsy arguments. Good night. I’m up for work tomorrow. Day six and 12 more hours of my sixty hour week and I don’t get paid as much as a nurse. Or a teacher. Or a Luas driver. But so what. To everyone their own and f*** the begrudgers.
Yeah of course. Sure they’re only pulling a lever up an down with potentially 300 people sitting/standing behind them at 70 kph. In fact, maybe they should pay Transdev for the privilege of working as a tram driver. I trust you’re voting for another five years of the enda show? Gotta love the Irish antipathy to strikes, too. Despite the fact that we rarely have them these days. Sure we’re a great little nation of compliant Europeans.
Be careful on that high horse. Will be quite a hard fall when it happens someday.
Seriously! If you don’t care then why comment on it. U seem to hold this profession higher than most others for some warped reason. You’ve pulled me up on nothing, all you’ve got to offer is hot air, made up facts, and stupid comparisons. Have a nice day in work, I’m goin on the beer for the day!!
Disgrace! I know people with PHD’s in their line of work that get paid less without any increase, these lads jus went on a few week training course and expect to be paid 50k +!
I’m not disagreeing with you but where does it say they are on €50k? If they start at €50k where does the pay scale end?
They can earn in the region of €42,000 a year basic wage. That’s not including unsociable hr’s or OT, which of course they are entitled to if they do it. A 50% pay rise would bring their pay to over €60,000. It’s incredible that they can hold Veoila to ransom and disrupt thousands of commuters with tight schedules, childcare arrangements, prepaid tickets, effectively costing commuters money. It’s effectively expecting a marginally higher grade than a minimum wage position to be paid €60,000 a year basic. It’s incredible that they even try to justify that there worth that Salary. Makes me angry as public servants took a hammering in recent years, apart from the elite few. Thousands of nurses that have people’s lives as their responsibilities will be paid less than half of Luas drivers if they get what they want. That just can’t be justified!
Or maybe those with the PHD’s are being massively exploited and should have a union protecting their livelihoods as the drivers do?
I don’t think they should even be on 42k never mind an increase .
We do, Wally. Out on strike on 3rd. But not over pay, over conditions – increasing student intake and not hiring extra lecturers.
I might be wrong, but I think their job is even less demanding than being a bus driver, after all, they don’t even need to learn a route, or even interact with customers in any way,they should be happy that they’re even paid that much! If you check out the recruitment page, the starting wage for a driver is nearly 35k, for less than 35 hours a week, that’s vastly overpaid
We need automated trams, I honestly believe they’re paid too much already and should not be able to hold the city to ransom like this!
53″8% are they serious? Living in cloud cuckoo land
Solidarity with the drivers. Paying all workers a decent wage is in the interests of the economy and society as a whole. Business in general wants its customers to have as much money in their pockets as possible to purchase their products and services and generate revenue and profit. In contrast, each individual firm wants to pay their workers as little as possible to reduce costs in order to maximize profit. In the macro economy, the workers ARE the customers and this glaring contradiction is lost on the slavering neo liberals eternally demanding wage cuts and ‘flexibility’ such as minimal hour contracts in the labour market.
It’s always aggregate demand and spending through the whole economy that ultimately creates and maintains jobs. Someone’s spending is always someone else’s job and income as the macro economy is circular. It is the aggregate spending of everyone in the economy, public, private, individuals and businesses that maintains and creates employment. We have seen the result of slashed government and private sector spending over the past 7 years of Austerity reflected in our massive dole queues, planes full of emigrants and mounting social problems such as the homelessness crisis.
The company is making a loss, increase in pay will prob just cost the tax payer more. You should pick your battles that you can justify better, and long winded reasons why they deserve an increase will not sway opinion that they are worth that salary. This strike not only devalues most other professions but also makes siptu look spectacularly out of touch, at best- grandiose and delusional!
My comment is a description of how the macro economy work whether you think it long winded or not. Declining wages across the economy inevitably means job losses as we’ve seen over the past 8 years.
Transdev is a private company which have no business operating public infrastructure such as a light rail network. Privatization of the national utilities and infrastructure is a fast track to increasing prices for the customers and declining wages and working conditions for the employees as we’ve seen in the Eircom debacle, the waste disposal service and the water network if this neo liberal government gets its way.
Ok fair point, wrong comment thread tho
@ wally Mooney. Can you state what you believe to be a “decent wage” is or what you think a decent wage for driving a tram is?
Driverless Luas for the win.ticket inspector on every tram. Better response times than humans and they can’t strike. Initial cost is higher but big savings in the long run
Just like the way McDonald’s installed self service machines to place you order with. Less staff, same turn over. Be carefully what you wish for luas “drivers”
Great idea cut human jobs. Clap clap clap
Who said cut human jobs? Instead of having to train a driver, train a ticket inspector. Less skilled job, less salary. still one person on the tram in case of emergencies. I’d say there would be a reduction in people shopping out on the fare too..
I think you missed the point Stephen, it’s unreasonable to expect a wage increase of 50% no matter what your job is or where you work. It’s even more precarious when it’s a low skilled job that can be easily automated. Just look at what happened in my example of McDonald’s. Low skilled workers demanding ridiculous wage increases so instead of giving into these silly demands, they went and implemented self service machines that don’t call in sick, don’t require a lunch break or maternity leave and only require maintenance every now and then. Push too much and the employer will push back.
skilled job. driving a luas is far from skilled. anyone person here could learn it in less than a hour. I would let them strike and then replace the lot of them
You people aren’t paying their wages so you should butt out and mind your own f***ing business. You don’t see Luas drivers commenting on your “brilliant” jobs that requires PHD’s. If the drivers can get their raise then good on them. They deserve it for putting up with sad vindictive passengers like you lot.
Don’t be a d**k! Of course we pay their wages. How do you think ticket prices are set??? If they get the increase, it will be reflected in ticket prices. And by the way everyone is entitled to an opinion!!
Stephen – they may automate one job, but someone has to design and manufacture the automation then maintain and improve it continuously, which requires skill and therefore higher wages. It’s taking low skill, low wage jobs and replacing them with higher skill, higher paying jobs, which is good for everyone.
Well, it’s good for everyone except those who think they should be able to do a task a monkey can do and earn more money than a teacher for it.
If I went into my boss and asked for a 50 percent wage increase I’d be told to piss off. I wouldn’t be going on strike, and disrupting the general public with my unrealistic greedy demands. This site is all about opinions regarding news stories and it’s anybody business to comment if they so wish
But Liam ur probably in a job that does not make a difference to anyone one. They are.
Well that’s all the more reason to dislike what they are doing. Basically holding the public to ransom for their own unrealistic greedy demands.
Fire them,with no redundancy package
Fire them, with no redundancy package
I’ll take their job for exactly what they are on now. No hassle.
Shouldn’t take more than 4 weeks to get some new drivers trained up… Veolia announced they were hiring for 300 jobs a few days ago.
I’m gonna go work tomorrow and demand a 50% increase or I’m striking. I’d be heading to the social welfare office Monday morning if I did that!
Raging. Already overpaid for what they do and will take me about 3 million years to get to work where I probably get paid less than I should
If you’re getting paid less than you should then I suggest you bring that up with your employer.
Upskill man
I wish them a long and fruitless dispute
Greed is back
SIPTU are beyond a joke at this stage. A private company losing money and SIPTU think it’s reasonable to pursue a +50% pay claim. This is not Irish Rail. The state is not going to throw 100 million of taxpayer’s money at Transdev and tell them to have the union dogs called off. Let them go to the LRC with it and see what happens.
Driving a Luas tram must be the easiest job in the world.
They start and they stop.
They do SFA all else.
Competition needed.
P.S.
A smart chimpanzee could do that job.
When are you applying
Where would the competition be pat would we build a rail line to run beside the luas. Ps a smart chimpanzee wouldn’t work for 42 grand
Let them.. Couldn’t give a sh#t
Greedy f**ks they get paid more than a lot harder working people out there and all they do is drive back and forward! Hardly back breaking work
Ive just realised something…. I’ve never been on the Luas…. !)
Off course they are – there’s an election looming!
I don’t use d luas or d bus anymore so as far as I’m concerned their strikes don’t affect me but it should b easier to drive round d city on them dates thanks for doing us motorists d fav lads hope ye go on longer strikes haha
D’car will be even slower when d’luas is on d’strike.
Because there won’t be more private cars on the road?
Couldn’t agree more Liam, bloody public transport!!! Clogging up my roads…grrrr!
Since it doesnt affect me I couldnt care less
Aren’t you the cool dude?
And we don’t care about you.
That’s great to know
Sounds like they’ve definitely gone off the rails.
There may be less crashes with these wasters off the road.
Best of luck to these drivers they deserve it!
Ur a clown
What I’d give to be in a €42K a year job! They really don’t deserve to make more than train drivers
Management taught these drivers to bite. Gave them an extra 12 rest days per year only a few years back and the average driving time per week is 32hours
TheJournal staff must be dyslexic or something..
Love all the hate for Luas drivers. There are 10s of thousands of Public Sector workers fleecing the State with similar pay and a nice little pension as the cherry on the cake.
I am sure there would be plenty of job applications if the lot of them were sacked. The problem is that the train and bus divers are paid too much. Public transport is already to expensive
A snapshot of the Journal comments section. “We hate corporations and big business, they’re greedy and they want to keep less fortunate people from earning more and having a better life. And FG let them pay no taxes. Having said that we don’t support anyone standing up for themselves and trying to pry a better wage from a big business, big business shouldn’t be held to ransom like that. In short, we don’t know what we like. Probably nothing.”
So let me get this right unless you have a PhD or studied at university are not a teacher or a nurse you a not entitled to earn a good living for the job you do. Teachers are 1 to talk 23hrs a week for up to 50 per year 6 months holidays give me a break if that’s not overpaid nothing is. Hope they get everything they look for
Yes, you are not entitled to 35k+ for something a monkey could do.
If you think teaching is so easy why dont you give it a try? Just imagine what you could do with all that free time ;)
Get in a position where thousands depend on your service and then extort them for ridiculous amounts of cash. I call it racket.
Sack them all and hire new staff. There’s gonna be huge queue of people who will be more than happy to get 32k starting salary for a position which requires no education or any special skills.
Nurses work 12 hour shifts and a lot of the time they don’t even get breaks! They have to stay back after their shift is finished just to complete work that cant be completely in a 12 hour period. These scalextric drivers who sit on the hole all day are already on way too much money as it stands… and by example devalue other professions that are much more demanding. Get a grip on reality fools!
What about areas that have only the luas to depend on. What are they to do
have your say